A26965:275
The nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of their judgment in certain things…
The nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of their judgment in certain things in which they are misunderstood written to reconcile and pacify such as by mistaking them hinder love and concord / by Richard Baxter.The nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of their judgment in certain things in which they are misunderstood written to reconcile and pacifie such as by mistaking them hinder love and concord / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Benj. Alsop, 1679
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2. Our Ordination consecrateth us to our Office, during life: And it is Sacrilege and Covenant-breaking with God to cast it off and alienate our selves.
2. Our Ordination consecrateth us to our Office, during life: And it is Sacriledge and Covenant-breaking with God to cast it off and alienate our selves.
3. God hath described the Office and the Work in his Word, and charged his servants to give the children their bread in due season, and adjured them before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing, and his Kingdom, to preach the Word, & be instant, in season, & out of season, &c.
4. The indispensable Law of Nature obligeth every man according to his Place and Calling, his Ability, and his Opportunities, to do his best to propagate Christ's Gospel, and to save mens souls, as much and more than to seed mens bodies, and save their lives: But our Calling is to do it as Ministers of Christ, thereto devoted. And we did not receive this Calling to be altered, or forborne at the will of man, but to be performed according to the Word of God: Men being not the Makers of the Office, nor of God's Law under which we execute it; nor the Donors ⟨p. 85⟩or Limiters of the Power, but only 1. The Electors of the Persons that shall receive it; 2. And the Investers of them in it by Ministerial delivery; 3. And the Governors of us in the exercise of it, according to God's Laws, by which they may punish us for male administration, but cannot dissolve the Laws obligation to those that are indeed commanded by it.